


ever and evermore

by akosmia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Lazy Sex, Morning Sex, No Pregnancy, Non-Linear Narrative, Oral Sex, Past Family Issues, Praise Kink, Safe to Read if You're Triggered by Pregnancy, Vaginal Sex, if that's a thing that exists, marriage kink, this is just fluff alright don't look at me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:40:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28335552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akosmia/pseuds/akosmia
Summary: All that hurt and pain and chaos, but he still ended up here, in a sunlit kitchen with the love of his life taking care of him as if he werespecial.Long story short, he’s happy.-- or: Ben has spent his whole life thinking he'd never get to be this happy, but now, with Rey, he finds out that he is.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 62
Kudos: 329
Collections: Reylo Evermore Flash Fic





	ever and evermore

**Author's Note:**

> happy boxing day if you celebrate!! and happy holidays!! surprise, i am still here and i'm still writing 12k words of fluff, who would have thought!! this is part of the reylo evermore collection which i can't wait to dig into because i love this album and i am thrilled to read what all these talented writers have come up with ♥
> 
> this was supposed to be a brief ficlet inspired by long story short by taylor swift but of course, you know me, every time i try to stay in a limited wordcount the only result i get is to obliterate that wordcount by ...a lot. i hope you don't mind though ♥
> 
> thank you again for all your support this year, it's been tough and we've all been through a rough patch, but all your love and support helped me through it ♥ i hope you all stay safe during these holidays, i love you all ♥

_“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.”_ _  
_ Mary Oliver 

By the time Christmas is rolling around again, with its overwhelming presence made out of songs and snow and presents and bright lights, Ben’s life has changed completely. 

There’s another toothbrush in the bathroom, another coat on the hanger in the living room, a bigger closet to fit both his and Rey’s clothes. There’s an abundance of chocolate bars in the pantry and another pair of boots next to his by the door. A new bookshelf to fit all of their books has been bought and then assembled in their living room – though with some difficulty on his part and a few bright giggles on hers. An obscene quantity of Christmas movies has been put on their Netflix queue and marshmallows to dump into the hot chocolate have been acquired. 

There’s someone who sings Christmas songs at the top of her lungs, her silvery voice echoing in all the rooms of the house, and who likes to light up candles that make the apartment smell like cinnamon and vanilla for hours. There’s a warm body next to his when he falls asleep now and a gentle hand that plays with his hair when he sits down on the couch with a cup of tea and a new book. There’s a gold band around his ring finger that he never takes off and that matches the one on Rey’s finger. 

There’s a new kind of _warmth_ , blossoming in his chest like a sunset-colored flower.

Today is a quiet morning, lazy in that comforting way that he’s learned to appreciate ever since Rey crashed into his life in a burst of colors at his mother’s Christmas party and changed his existence – _him_ – for the better. Were this a normal morning in his old life, he’d wake up at the crack of dawn, he’d go for a run and then he’d come back for a quick shower and a black coffee and go about his day as if on autopilot, without any awareness, time passing him by and slipping between his fingers like sand. 

Instead, he’s still in their bed and it feels – _pleasant_. He enjoys the feeling of the sheets they’ve picked against his skin, the sunlight streaming through the curtains they’ve chosen together and casting a soft light on him, warm and indolent. Despite his usual grumpiness when all things Christimas-y are mentioned, Ben likes this time of the year – these special, precious days in which winter looks a bit like summer, when the rays of the sun cut through the layers of frost and snow to come to warm their tender bodies in the gentlest way, before they disappear when the sun starts to set, bringing on the clear blue velvet sky of the night. 

His eyes flutter open so slowly, his lashes trembling against his cheek before he finally manages to wake up and it all feels so lazy but also so terribly _right_. He’s never wasted so much time in his life, and yet he’s never lived every minute so much. 

It’s a weird duality that he’s still learning how to cope with, but Rey is a wonderful teacher. 

As his eyes flutter open, it takes him a moment to come back to himself. The spot next to him is unusually empty and the sheets are cold, but Rey’s scent – a mix of citrus from her shampoo and what he can only define as _sunshine_ – lingers on her pillow and he can hear her in the kitchen, tinkering away and humming under her breath something that sounds suspiciously like _All I Want For Christmas Is You._

It’s sweet and mundane and utterly domestic, all of which makes this moment perfect. His heart does a weird, fluttery dance in his chest and he’s suddenly overwhelmed by the impossible thought of being able to do this for the rest of his life. 

It’s a new sensation, like a weight that settles on his chest. It takes him a moment to realize that it’s happiness. He had forgotten how that felt, before Rey came around, and now she makes him want things for himself, which he hadn’t in a long time. 

The scent of coffee, mixed with the smell of bacon, makes its way from the kitchen to their bedroom and elicits a rumble of his stomach and a smile on his lips. He stretches, then slips his t-shirt back on and paddles toward the kitchen, following the traces of her that Rey leaves behind.

Rey is there, quite obviously. Mariah Carey plays softly from her phone while she stands there, in the middle of the kitchen. There’s coffee in the pot, a small tendril of steam rising from it, and she’s at the stove, busy checking that the eggs and bacon currently frying in the pan aren’t going to burn. Her back is turned on him as she stirs the bacon and she sways slightly to the music she’s put on, dancing barefoot on the wooden floor. 

The sight of her takes his breath away and makes his heart stutter in his chest, as if it had stumbled upon a beat for a moment. 

She’s wearing one of his shirts, slightly unbuttoned at the collar, and nothing else, with the exception of her underwear. It’s not an unusual occurrence – she used to steal his clothes even before they moved in together, after all – but it still does something to his heart, seeing her in his shirt and nothing else. 

She’s – _beautiful_. She always is, with her bright smile and those eyes that seem to be made for the sole purpose of making a mess out of his heart, and yet there’s something in the scene unfolding in front of him that makes her look _radiant_. It’s a perfectly domestic image, and yet it tilts the world on its axis and suddenly, the universe exists just so she can dance in their kitchen this December morning, dressed only in his shirt. 

It feels instinctive, to come up beside her and wrap his arms around her waist, pressing a soft kiss to her covered shoulder.

“Morning,” he murmurs, his lips automatically curving into a smile. 

Rey doesn’t jump – as if she were used to his presence. As if she expected him to come into the kitchen and hug her from behind, nestling his head in the crook of her neck as if their bodies were made to fall into place like this. Instead, she melts into his warmth, letting out a soft hum when he kisses her shoulder again.

“Morning, sweetheart,” she says. She stirs again the bacon in the pan, then a sudden thought seems to possess her, because she tenses for a second and lets out what resembles a defeated sigh, before adding, “Oh no, you woke up.”

He frowns. “I’m confused,” he replies, his face still buried in her shoulder so that the words are muffled by the fabric of his shirt. “Wasn’t I supposed to? Did you plan to kill me in my sleep and dispose of my body?”

The laughter that escapes her lips is every bit as bright as her. Despite how many times he’s heard it before, Ben’s heart still flutters in his chest, because Rey’s laughter is his favorite sound in the whole world and he thinks he’d like to spend his whole life trying to make her this happy. It feels like sunshine wrapped all over his body and those dimples that appear on her cheeks when she smiles flood his chest with a warmth he’d never felt before. 

He’d be okay with cracking awful jokes for the rest of his days, if only it made her laugh like that.

“Yes, you got me there,” she says. He can’t see her face right now, but he can almost _feel_ the nose-scrunch she always does when he makes a dumb joke and he _dies_ to kiss her right now, but she seems busy trying not to burn the bacon, so he stays planted where he is, which is perfectly fine for him, too, since he gets to litter her neck with small kisses that make her sigh. “I was thinking of dumping you in the lake near Varykino.”

He hums. Plants another kiss to her freckled shoulder, just because he can. “Long drive, though.”

She giggles again. The sound echoes in their small kitchen and it almost makes it come alive, filling it with an incandescent warmth that Ben had never felt before she came into his life and wrecked it, changing its course. 

“Shut up.”

She turns off the stove, carefully picks up the eggs and bacon and places it on a plate, before settling it on the kitchen table and though he doesn’t let her go the whole time, she doesn’t complain at all.

It surprises him to discover how _clingy_ he is – as if he couldn’t get enough of her. Her body, her laugh, the warmth of her presence, the way she seems to instinctively fit against him as if they were two puzzle pieces. He’d never realized how hungry, how _starved_ he was for someone to touch, until Rey came around and changed him with the brush of her fingertips. 

Then, when she’s done, she turns into his arms to beam up at him. 

“Morning,” she whispers, gifting him one of her beautiful dimpled smiles.

It feels automatic to bend down a bit to kiss it from her lips. Her smile only widens at that.

“Just so you know,” she murmurs against his mouth, her eyes still half-closed, her lips curved into that devastating smile. Her hands come to rest on his chest for balance and he can feel the warmth of her palms against the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “I was not planning on murdering you. I just wanted to bring you breakfast in bed. I even put on an alarm.”

He pulls away a bit just to look her in the eyes, surprised.

“You put on an alarm–” he starts, frowning. “To make me _breakfast_?”

Rey nods, of all things. One of her hands travels up, coming to cradle his face, and the wedding ring on her finger brushes against his cheek, gently. It’s warm from her skin and solid, real against his face, and it brings forth a warm rush of happiness that he doesn’t even try to hide. Why this detail makes his heart skip a few beats, he can’t tell – they’ve been married for a few months, after all. 

Still, it’s enough to spark an incandescent joy in his chest.

“Well, you usually wake before I do, so I wanted to make sure,” she explains, with a shrug, as if she were saying something obvious and not tilting his whole universe on its axis. She must notice the surprise in the back of his eyes, because she adds, “Don’t look at me like _that_. I just wanted to do something nice for you. You always do it for me and I thought I could– I don’t know. Make you happy." 

His hand comes to rest over hers and he brings it down to his lips, kissing her palm almost fervently. He has to blink the tears away while she looks at him, her love so easy to read on the beautiful lines of her face.

It takes him by surprise, the notion that someone would want to make him happy.

That someone would care.

He kisses her palm again, just because the idea of being cared for makes him quite useless for anything else. 

“You make me happy all the time, sweetheart,” he replies. "You don’t need to do anything else. You make me the happiest I’ve ever been." 

If his voice trembles, then she’s kind enough not to point it out. Instead, she brushes a solitary tear away from his face and cradles his cheek with the utmost tenderness, as if he were something delicate and precious. 

Rey looks at him with a little awestruck smile on her lips. “I do?” 

It’s so devastatingly easy to lean in and kiss the tip of her nose, making her giggle, making those dimples he loves so much appear on her cheeks. 

“You very much do,” he tells her, softly and yet ardently, because she has to _know_. How happy she makes him. How wonderful and earth-shattering it is, to be loved like this. Then, he smiles and pokes her in the ribs. “I can’t believe you put on an alarm to make me breakfast.”

A groan escapes her lips and she rolls her eyes, though he can see the amusement in the back of her gaze when she looks at him again. “It’s not my fault you wake up obscenely early.”

He pokes her again. “8 AM is not obscenely early,” he defends himself, pressing his lips together in a pout. “It’s not my fault you have the circadian rhythm of an owl.”

“Shut up,” she replies, scrunching up her nose.

“Should I say _make me_?”

Blissfully, she does. She rises to her tiptoes and tugs him down a bit and kisses him, slowly and deeply and almost languidly. It feels as if being bathed in the sunlight, as if the rays of sun slowly filtering through their windows had started to run down his veins too, and it makes his heart melt, love and happiness spilling out of it in a golden burst. He sighs into the kiss when she sinks her hands into his hair and she lets out a little content hum when he wraps his arms around her hips and hoists her up with no effort at all, placing her gently on the kitchen counter. 

They’ve learned each other so thoroughly their bodies already know how to fall back together – she parts her legs so he can rest between them and he lets his hands slide down, his fingers gently grasping the soft flesh of her thighs so he can bring her closer. Her teeth come to nibble slightly at his bottom lip, eliciting a wrecked sound from him, and her hands come to rest at the base of his neck, her fingers splayed against the thin material of his t-shirt.

He can feel her wedding ring right against his skin – the warmth and the weight of it as she runs her hands up and down his back. He groans into the kiss.

When it becomes apparent that, while he’d gladly spend his whole life kissing Rey without wanting anything else, his body still needs air, he breaks away, but doesn’t let her go. Instead, he starts to trail soft, open-mouthed kisses down her neck, left gloriously uncovered by the slightly unbuttoned shirt of his she’d decided to wear.

She sighs, arching her back as if to grant him better access. “Ben,” she murmurs. 

He just hums against her freckled skin, his lips trailing down, down, down, until he can brush away the fabric of his shirt and kiss the outline of her breast, making her jolt and buck up into him. The soft sounds that fall from her lips are his favorite song.

“ _Ben_ ,” she sighs again. 

Her fingers dig into his t-shirt, burning through it and leaving a scorching trail against his skin.

“Ben, we’re supposed– _oh_.” She lets out a sound between a sigh and a moan when he comes to scrape his teeth against her pulse point, where he knows the barest hint of a kiss is enough to render her speechless. Still, she insists, valiantly. “We’re supposed to eat breakfast.”

He groans again, his hands tightening their hold on her thighs. “Can’t I eat my wife instead?”

What comes out of her lips is something halfway between a laugh and a moan. He thinks he’d like to stay here for the rest of his life, wringing little wrecked sounds out her rosy lips, giving her all the pleasure and happiness she deserves until the universe explodes into an incandescent flare of light. 

“Well,” she starts, her hands sinking into his hair again, her fingers tugging at the strands in a way that makes his body turn liquid with pleasure. “Normally I wouldn’t be opposed to that, but– _fuck_ , Ben.” Her legs quiver around him when he comes to roll her nipple between his fingers over the fabric of his shirt. “But breakfast will get cold and I worked really hard on it, you know. Alarm and everything. Later?”

At this, he breaks away from her just to look at her. Her face is flushed, a pink tint covering her freckles, and her eyes are dark with want, but she’s also smiling so tenderly and she’s looking at him with so much love and soft trepidation and she’s worked so hard to make him breakfast, setting up an alarm so she could wake before he did, and she’s clearly so _excited_ to do something for him and–

“Alright.” He leans in only to kiss her forehead, gently. Her legs are still wrapped around his waist, but he lets her thighs go and brings his hands to her face, cradling it. “I am quite hungry after all.”

She laughs again and tugs him down to plant a soft peck to his lips. “I love you.”

It’s so easy to tell her, “I love you too, sweetheart.”

And he does. He loves her. He loves her so much so much his body – six feet three inches of it – feels too small to contain this feeling. 

So they settle at the breakfast table. He pours her coffee and she sits on his lap, planting soft kisses to his temple as he eats his breakfast and stealing a piece of bacon from his plate every now and then even though she has her own plate. It feels – _perfect_.

As if he’d been waiting his whole life for this moment. All that hurt and pain and chaos, but he still ended up here, in a sunlit kitchen with the love of his life taking care of him as if he were _special_. 

Long story short, he’s happy.

“I was thinking we could go watching the Christmas decoration in town, later,” she murmurs, nuzzling her nose against his temple. Then, she searches his eyes. “If you want. I know you’re not big on Christmas.”

“No, it’s alright.” He leans into her, planting a kiss to the perfect slope of her neck. “Sounds perfect. But only after I’ve thanked you properly for this breakfast.”

Her laugh – bright, heartfelt, warm – echoes in their kitchen and lights the whole house up, better than any Christmas light could.

✨

At sixteen, Ben Solo has learned not to get his hopes up when it comes to his family. Not that he would, anyway – he’s spent the better part of the last few years being continuously disappointed by them and it would be a foolish sort of mistake, to still believe they could somehow change course.

Still, sometimes he does. 

Which explains how he ends up on Christmas morning staring at the note his mother has left him on the kitchen counter.

 _Sorry, there was an emergency at work_ , it reads in her neat but a bit rushed handwriting, _You have no idea how sorry your father and I are, sweetheart. I promise you, next Christmas will be different. I left you something to order take out with. Love, mom._

His father hasn’t bothered to leave a message of his own, which doesn’t surprise Ben at all. 

He stares at the forty dollars his mother has left him next to the note, then sighs. He loads the moka pot and puts it on the stove, and while the coffee brews he opens the fridge to stare at what they’ve left. He takes out a few tomatoes and a bit of basil, then retrieves a pack of pasta from the pantry. The smell of coffee elicits a rumble from his stomach and he stops to pour the coffee in a mug, drinking it black. 

The house is so quiet as he stands there, leaning against the counter in an empty kitchen on Christmas Day. He feels so awfully lonely he thinks he’d claw his heart out of his chest just to stop feeling like this. For a moment, he wonders if he can.

The voices from the TV fill the ample space of the kitchen as he works through the morning. He can’t stomach the plethora of Christmas movies he finds at every turn, so he settles for a true crime documentary on some minor channel, which kind of fits his mood anyway. He grabs one of those expensive kitchen knife they never use and cuts down the tomatoes with methodical attention, while the TV talks about murder and blood and investigations. He tries not to see the irony in that. 

A bit of oil on the saucepan, then the carefully cut tomatoes. He stirs the sauce every now and then, then puts on a pot for the pasta. By the end of it, he’s got a plate of tomato pasta to dive into and an extensive knowledge of all the unsolved murders in the Coruscant area.

It’s not even that bad, he thinks as he chews on the pasta. Better than take-out, at least. 

Then, he carefully washes the plates and puts everything back to where it was. He pockets the forty dollars his mother had left him, wondering how many second-hand books he can buy with it from his favorite bookstore.

For the rest of the day, he lies on the couch with his battered copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_ and a mug of coffee. He’s already read it so many times before he can almost quote it word by word, but at this point reading it is less about the story and more about the comfort those words bring to him. He wraps himself in his throw blanket and highlights his favorite passages with a pencil and by the time his parents come back home, he’s already three quarters into it. 

“Ben!” his mother calls him as soon as the door falls shut, her eyes full of worry and sorrow, her pain so clearly visible on the lines of her face. There are a few marks around her eyes and on her forehead that weren’t there a few years ago. She’s getting older, he realizes. He’d feel bad for her, hadn’t she left him on his own on Christmas Day, he supposes. “How are you, sweetie?”

His father stands awkwardly next to his mother, his piercing blue-eyes staring straight at him. Ben almost wants to punch him. Almost wants to throw himself at his feet and ask to be loved.

Instead, he just shrugs. “Fine.” He points at the book currently resting on his lap. “Reading.”

She presses her lips together and eyes him, so carefully, as if he were a bomb ready to go off and she were searching for a way to defuse him. It unsettles him, being looked at like that – as if _he_ were the problem. 

“Good,” she says, then. Her voice trembles slightly and he wonders if she’s about to cry. “I’m so sorry, Ben, I truly am, I wouldn’t–”

“It’s alright,” he interrupts her, tilting his head to the side. It’s not alright – but what ever is, in this house? This is just another wound, not different from all the others they’ve inflicted each other over the last few years, and it doesn’t change anything. Not really. “It’s not like you care.”

His mother inhales, sharply, as if he’d just stabbed her. 

“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” his father intervenes, taking a step into his direction, a flash of fury in his blue eyes.

Of course he would, Ben thinks, almost bitterly – because, after all, when has his father ever let an opportunity to remind him of what a disappointment he is as a son ever pass him by? 

His mother puts a hand on his father’s arm to calm him. It’s a gesture that speaks of familiarity, and it makes his stomach churn because he’s never had anyone to touch him like this, tenderly but also surely. No one knows him like this. No one ever will, he thinks.

“It’s alright, Han,” she says, softly. Her voice is such a quiet, tenuous thing. So different from the fierce armor she puts on at work. “Ben, sweetie, I do care. And I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have–”

He can’t bear to listen to another one of these discussions. He’s heard it all – she’s sorry, they love him, if he could just understand for once, if he could just accept once and for all that he’s never going to be their top priority, if he could just be _normal_ and not so angry all the times, if he could be the perfect son they expected him to be and not this defective creature he actually is and he’s– 

He’s _tired_. 

“It’s okay, mom,” he tells her, then stands up to his feet, neatly folding the blanket he had wrapped around himself. He grabs his book, holding it against his chest as if it were an armor. “I’m okay. Christmas is not that important. I’m going to sleep. See you tomorrow.”

He doesn’t look back when he gets up the stairs. He doesn’t know if his parents cry or look at him with hatred in their eyes and maybe it’s better this way.

✨

Snow falls in small flakes all around as they walk through the Christmas tree farm this night, and the kids running around in a symphony of giggles make this place look like a snowglobe, illuminated as it is by the low glow of the fairy lights.

It’s almost pleasant, all things considered.

Sure, it’s Christmas and sure, he doesn’t like Christmas very much, but the scene in front of his eyes leaves a new sort of warmth inside his chest and Rey’s hands in his as they make their way through the infinite rows of trees is familiar and exciting at the same time.

She’s wearing gloves, so he can’t really feel her comforting warmth, but his thumb comes to brush against the slight bump of her wedding ring underneath the layer of wool of her glove and he grins like a fool everytime, though he tries to hide it in his scarf. 

He doesn’t think he’s particularly successful at that, but Rey doesn’t seem to mind. 

“How about that one?” Rey asks him, pointing out a tree in front of them.

He squeezes his eyes to look at it through the flakes. “Sweetheart,” he says, gently. “That tree is two times our house.”

Rey scrunches up her nose. 

She’s so fucking _cute_ like this – she’s wearing one of his beanies and she’s wrapped in her warmest coat, a yellow scarf around her neck because she just can’t stand the cold. Her cheeks are flushed, the tip of her nose red, and there are flakes in her hair. She looks like a winter masterpiece painted in bright colors and he’s already stopped dead in his tracks to kiss her three different times, eliciting a soft chuckle from her and a few rounds of applause from other customers. 

“This is harder than I thought it would be,” she says, pouting a bit. “I didn’t know you had to think about all these things while picking up a Christmas tree. Now I understand what you meant when you said Christmastime is _stressful_.”

It’s instinctive to squeeze her hand to comfort her. “We’ll find the perfect tree,” he tells her, leaning in to plant a kiss to her covered temple. Rey hums at the contact. “I promise.”

Her lips are still pursed in a pout, but she leans into him and melts into his body as he brings an arm around her shoulder. In her bundle of clothes, she’s generating enough heat to sustain this whole Christmas tree farm for at least a few weeks and it’s a pleasant thing, basking into her warmth. 

It feels like coming home.

He never thought he could ever feel so happy, especially so near Christmas. Instead, Rey intertwines their gloved fingers together, there where his hand rests on her shoulder, and he feels strangely content, as if his chest had been filled with peace.

“Thank you,” Rey murmurs, after a moment. She turns a bit into his direction and flashes him a tentative smile. “For this.” She gestures vaguely, as if to point at the whole farm around them. “Everything. I know you don’t like Christmas– for you it must be, like, torture.”

Snowflakes fall all around them, covering her chestnut hair in white little drops when he stops dead in his tracks just to look at her, bright eyes and hesitant smile and those freckles that remind him of a night sky in the middle of summer. She’s so beautiful and radiant – she shines brighter than all the fairy lights out here, brighter than the stars, brighter than a supernova, and to be granted even a glimpse of this light is a privilege he feels unworthy of.

He can’t believe she chose _him_ , of all people. 

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, leaning in to cup her face into his hands. It’s a bit awkward, given the fact that he’s wearing thick woolen gloves, but Rey blushes all the same, her cheeks turning the most adorable shade of pink, so he doesn’t think it matters. “Nothing makes me happier than this. Doing things with you.”

The smile that breaks on her face is so luminous he almost feels like he’s glowing, too. As if her brightness had lodged somewhere inside his chest, lighting him up from the inside. 

“Even if it’s Christmas?” she asks.

He leans in to press a kiss to her forehead. Up close, he can see the moment her eyes flutter shut, the way her lashes brush gently against her cheeks. The softest sigh that escapes her lips. There’s a tender sort of beauty in these details, something ordinary turning into art. 

“Especially if it’s Christmas. You know, I’m starting to like it. I suspect it’s your doing,” he replies, then. Rey smiles again, and he thinks that spending his life trying to make her just as happy would be an honor he’ll try to be worthy of. “Come on, let’s go or they’ll get all the good trees.”

 _White Christmas_ is blasting from the speakers as they make their way through the farm. Rey slips her hand into his again, as if it pained her to be parted from him, and he brings her gloved fingers to his lips, kissing her covered knuckles. She shivers and giggles, even if she can’t probably feel it.

Then, as they’re eyeing a reasonably tall tree, she bites down on her bottom lip and turns into his direction to look at him with those magnificent eyes full of love and warmth and _home_.

“You know what I love about Christmas?” 

He raises his eyebrows, teasingly. “The food?” 

There she goes again, with that adorable nose-scrunch of hers. 

“No, you _idiot_ ,” she replies, then, poking him in the ribs with her free hand and eliciting a chuckle from him. “I mean, that too, but only because you spend so much time making all the things I love.” She pauses for a moment. Her smile turns tender, soft when she adds, “That’s it, really. I love that I get to spend it with you. My family.”

Oh.

This magnificent, wonderful woman who somehow stumbled into his life and decided to stay. He can’t help the flutter of his heart at her words, nor the way his breath comes out in a shaky exhale, and he can’t even stop the first few tears as they fall from his eyes. He just–

He never thought he’d get to have this. Someone to love him. Someone who would want to spend Christmas with him. Someone he could love without the constant, overwhelming fear of seeing that love turn into bitterness and regret. 

“You’re just saying this to make me cry, aren’t you?” he manages to say, his voice uneven, his hand trembling in hers. He has to blink the tears away to keep looking at her.

Rey’s smile turns even softer if it’s possible. “Oh, my beautiful, sensitive husband,” she coos and oh, it does something to him, the fact that she calls him _husband_. He feels warm all over, his heart in his throat, when she lets go of his hands only to cradle his face and wipe the tears away from his cheeks. “You’re adorable.”

He’s a mess of rapid heartbeats and incandescent happiness. “Say that again.”

Her smile widens. “What?” There’s so much love there, in the curve of her lips. He feels as if he could drown in it. “ _Husband_?”

It’s instinctive to bend down to kiss her, again. It’s soft, gentle – just as tender as the snowflakes brushing against their skin, and yet he feels as if the touch of her lips against his had started a fire deep within his chest that doesn’t turn him to ashes, but warms him from the inside. She twines her arms around his neck and rises to her tiptoes and he brings his hand to her waist to steady her and they stay like this for what feels like a brief eternity, under the snow, kissing among the fairy lights. 

It feels magical.

When she breaks away, she rests her forehead against his and smiles. “Hi, husband.”

A laugh escapes his lips even as his heart skips a few beats. “Hi, wife.” He revels in the deepening flush on her cheeks, then bends down to kiss the tip of her nose, like he always does. “Come on. I’ve seen the perfect tree. I can’t wait to decorate it with you.”

✨

At twenty-four Ben Solo hasn’t seen his family in at least a year.

He never meant it for it to _happen,_ not consciously at least. When he moved to Coruscant, he made a mental note to visit once he settled into his new position at Snoke’s firm, but then weeks turned into months and he started to work on week-ends too and all of his mother’s calls went into his voicemail and, after all, it was easier like this – easier than hearing her disappointed voice again, easier than being reminded of what an awful son he is, easier than feeling like an unwanted toy tossed out the day after Christmas by a capricious child.

Snoke tells him it’s for the best.

“They don’t see your potential,” he keeps saying, his eyes cutting through all the layers of the armor Ben has spent his whole life polishing, making him feel awfully vulnerable and exposed. _Seen_ , but in a bad way. “They don’t see you. They just see all the things you aren’t.”

And isn’t that the truth? He feels as if he’d spent all this time begging his parents to notice him – _him_ , the real person underneath all their disappointment – to no avail. He’s always felt invisible to their eyes, as if he were a ghost, screaming and shouting his throat raw in the hope of catching their gaze at least once.

Maybe Snoke’s right. Maybe it is for the best. 

Still, there’s a weight in his chest that sometimes seems to be pressing down on his heart, preventing him from breathing.

By the time Christmas rolls around, he hasn’t heard from his parents in months. 

Which is why he’s so surprised when he comes home from work on Christmas Eve and finds his mother right outside his apartment. 

Night has already fallen like spilled ink all over the busy streets on which he lives and the light of the streetlights filters through the tiny windows of his building, casting her in a soft glow that almost makes her look like a ghost from a different time – a memory taken out of his childhood, when his mother was young and bright-eyed and so fierce and strong and she loved him still.

When he reaches his apartment door, though, the magic falters and he sees her like she truly is and she’s – _tiny_. So much shorter and smaller than he remembers, the lines around her eyes and on her forehead more prominent than ever, and there’s no trace of that fierceness that burned through her like a fire.

Instead, she looks _tired_.

“Mom,” he says, surprised. He drops his keys and he’s got to bend down to retrieve them, which gives him a moment to stop looking at her, this fragile little creature she’s become while he was busy resenting her. He gulps. “What are you doing here? How did you–” He gestures vaguely around. “How did you get here?”

The smile that breaks on her face is sad, exhausted. “The doorman let me in. I told him I was your mother and I was worried because I hadn’t seen you in months,” she explains, tilting her head as if to study him. It surprises him to recognize himself in this gesture, as if he’d inherited her mannerism too, without him noticing. “It’s good to see you again, Ben.”

The words are like a blow. He gulps, then looks away from her, maybe too afraid of reading something in the back of her eyes he’s not ready to see. 

Sorrow. Regret. Forgiveness. 

It’s all so messy he can’t even imagine what would undo him more. 

So he shoulders past her and slides the key into the lock, then turns it with methodical attention until it clinks. The door falls open with a slight creak and he steps in without looking at her, but feeling her gaze on him all the same. He waits for her to step inside, too, then closes the door behind her. 

The silence is almost overwhelming, in this tiny apartment devoid of any Christmas decoration. He turns on the lights and divests himself of his coat, then runs a hand through his hair and lets out a breath that feels almost like another blow.

It unsettles him, her presence – this apartment was supposed to be _safe_ for him but it’s not, because his mother is _here_ and his heart is doing something in his chest he can’t understand, fluttering and then stopping at turns, like a wounded creature in his ribcage alternating between cowering and lashing out.

“Want something to drink?” he asks her, then. “I’ve got some white wine.”

Her gaze, though obviously tired, is as cutting as ever and he feels still like the kid he was, begging for love and attention. “Yes, that would be fine.”

That’s how they end up in his tiny kitchen, perched on his stools, with a glass of wine in front of them. The last, lingering notes of a Christmas song coming from the streets fill the space and the growing silence between them and Ben feels like there’s something in his chest dying to claw its way out of his throat.

He wonders if it’s his heart, or just the monster his hunger for any scrap of love has created. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, then. 

His mother looks at him, her eyes so full of things he doesn’t want to linger on. There’s so much hurt there – he knows he’s responsible for at least half of it, if sorrow was something countable. 

“Ben,” she says, his name sounding almost like a prayer on her lips. As if she were begging him, her defective son. “Sweetie. It’s Christmas and you haven’t called in months.”

He takes a sip of his wine, but it leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth and he doesn’t know if it has gone sour or if it’s just the effect his mother has on him. 

“I know,” he says, in the end, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “I– I just–” A defeated sigh escapes his lips and he stares down at his hands when he mutters, “It’s better this way.”

He doesn’t have the courage to look at her when he says that, and yet he can feel her inhale and then let out a pained breath, as if he’d driven a knife right into her heart. 

He wonders when things went so wrong between them. When she realized that he just wasn’t worth loving or when _he_ realized it? Snoke would tell him that it’s always been like this and that he was too naive to see it before, but it can’t possibly be. He remembers – being loved, for a while at least. 

“ _Better_?” she repeats, as if she couldn’t understand that simple word. Her voice is laced with hurt, trembling in the harsh lights of his kitchen. “Ben, we miss you all the time. How can this be _better_?”

The words leave his lips in a bitter haze and they taste just as bad as the wine does. “Do you miss me or the son you wanted me to be?” he asks her, raising his eyes to look at her.

He hardens his face in an expression that betrays nothing of the hurt stirring just beneath the surface, but he almost falters when he sees the pain flashing in the back of his mother’s eyes and he wonders if she can read the same on the lines of his face. He looks so much like her – everything is written in his eyes, in the way his lips curve, and she must be able to leaf through him as if he were a book.

“I’ve hurt you,” she whispers, so softly, as if she were trying to soothe a wounded animal, terrified of seeing him lash out at her. It makes him want to cry. “We’ve hurt you. Your father and I– we’ll never forgive ourselves for it. All the times we’ve made you feel like this. But Ben– we love you. You, the person you are _now_.”

A mirthless laugh escapes his lips. 

“You don’t even know who I am,” he replies, raising his eyebrows. “You’ve never seen me. Or my potential. You just saw everything I’m not.”

Her gaze is heavy and cutting, even as she looks at him with tears in her eyes. It’s devastating, the way he feels transparent under her gaze. Still _seen_ , still caught under the harsh lights. 

He never wants to be seen again.

“These are Snoke’s words,” she says, in the end, so quietly. Her voice echoes a bit in the small space, making him shiver. “You can’t let him poison your mind.”

He feels like a petulant child when he mutters, “At least he cares about me.”

His mother doesn’t jolt or jump anymore, doesn’t inhale as if he’d stabbed her, doesn’t let out a pained breath.

Instead, she just tilts her head, studying him, and asks him, “Does he?” 

The weight on his chest presses down on his heart again, leaving him breathless, and all the air in the world seems to have disappeared. He can’t do anything but stare at his mother and shake like a leaf, feeling powerless. Snoke is right, they don’t see him, they never will, he’s got to leave it all behind because he can’t do this anymore– 

“I cant–” he starts. The stool scrapes against his floor when he stands up to his feet, running a hand through his hair and breathing heavily. “I can’t do this, mom. Please. Please, I just– I’m tired. Just _go_.”

He expects her to protest, to scream, to tell him he’s being an idiot – that he’s the awful son she’s always thought he was. Instead, she sighs and stands to her feet too, putting on the coat she’d shed when she’d stepped into the kitchen. Then, she steps closer to him and brushes her hand against his arm, gently, as if not to startle him. Her touch is hesitant, her fingers trembling slightly against his arm.

“We love you, Ben. I love you,” she whispers. Another devastating blow to an already battered heart. “We’ll be there for you, when you are ready to come back home. Merry Christmas, sweetie.”

The silence that resounds all around his apartment after she leaves is so loud it almost makes his ears ring. He empties the two glasses in his sink, then sits on his couch with his old copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_ and doesn’t read a single word of it for the rest of the night.

✨

One of the downsides of their brand new apartment is that their shower is a bit too small to fit both of them comfortably, and yet Rey doesn’t seem to mind as she slips inside after him at the end of the day, her hands resting at the base of his spine as if to guide him. Her wedding ring lingers against his skin, warm under the spray of water, and he sighs into her touch, pleasant little shivers running down his body.

Hot water falls on both of them in a gentle stream, enveloping them in its heat, and yet nothing is quite as gentle as the touch of her hand as she starts to wash him, her fingers exploring every inch of his skin, brushing against every mole and imperfection. He feels as if bathed in light, as if the moonlight filtering through the tiny window of their bathroom had pooled into his chest.

He never felt quite as luminous as he’s started to feel ever since Rey stepped into his life.

“Mh,” he breathes out, the sigh falling from his lips before he even realizes. “That feels so good.”

Rey smiles. They’re so close he can feel the curving of her lips right against his shoulder, and it ruins him, this smile pressed right against his skin, as if she’d left a mark on him. He’d bear it proudly for the rest of his life.

“Good,” she replies, quietly. “I love making you feel good.”

The scent of soap – the artisanal one she likes to buy at the farmers market, that smells like spring and wildflowers – fills the tiny space as she starts to cover him in lather. First his shoulders, then his back, his arms, his chest – her hands slide down his muscles tenderly, pouring attention on every bit of his skin as if she were worshipping him, counting every mole in her path even if she knows them by heart by now. She’s spent the better part of the last few years learning him and his body holds no secrets for her anymore, and yet it’s always a surprise, the touch of her fingertips. 

Her hands are warm, the tender weight of her wedding ring welcome against his skin. He feels so cared for. Loved. _Held_.

He never thought he’d get to have this. This quiet shower together at the end of a busy day, right before slipping into bed with the love of his life.

“Your mother called,” Rey informs him, as she washes the soap away from his skin, letting the hot water fall softly on his back.

He hums again, his eyes fluttering closed as her hands rest at the base of his spine as if to steady him. And if she’s trying to steady his body or his soul, he can’t tell, but he likes to think it works either way. 

“What did she want?”

Her words are pressed right against his back when she comes to plant a kiss right between his shoulder blades as if to melt away any lingering trace of tension. 

“She invited us to her Christmas party,” she murmurs, gently. Her voice is muffled by his skin and the rush of water, and yet he can hear her all the same, as if she were the perfect melody, composed only to ensorcell him. “She told me she’d be thrilled to have us, but she understands if we want to spend our first Christmas as a married couple on our own. Wait, don’t turn, I still have to wash your hair.”

He hums and stays planted where he is, the water turning his body into something pliant and soft for her to touch and love and take care of. He wants to be nothing else, he thinks.

“What would you like to do?” he asks her, then. 

The words are almost slurred together – he feels sleepy and indolent, surrounded as he is by hot water and the warmth of her embrace, and he could fall asleep there, in the circle of her arms, and feel completely okay.

Maybe it’s the small space in which they’re holed up right now or maybe it’s Rey’s warm presence at his back and the way she makes him feel at home with just a simple touch, but for the first time in his life he doesn’t feel the trepidation mixed with the overwhelming dread in the pit of his stomach when he thinks about his family. Instead, he feels _safe_.

He thinks Rey knows it and that’s why she’s telling him now.

Oh, how he loves his thoughtful girl. 

“Well, that depends on what _you_ want to do,” she replies, quietly. “If you– wait, pass me the shampoo– Thank you, baby.” She plants another kiss to his skin and he feels himself shiver, the endearments turning his insides into a fluttery thing no matter how many times he’s heard it before. “If you want to go, then we’ll go. If you don’t feel comfortable and want to stay here, then we’ll stay. I’ll be with you either way.”

He lets Rey wash his hair too, her fingers carding through the strands so tenderly and gently he feels almost moved to tears. She caresses his scalp as she spreads the shampoo around and then her fingers thread through his hair when she comes to wash away the lather. It’s so pleasant he feels his body melt into hers again and the thought of his family doesn’t turn him into a scared little kid anymore, desperate for any semblance of affection and approval he could steal from his parents. 

Instead, he feels – alright. Sure of who he is, of the love that pulses steadily in the space between him and Rey. 

He doesn’t have to beg for it anymore. 

“Will you hold my hand the whole time?”

Rey giggles. The sound echoes in the small space and it feels as if she were wrapping him in it. “Yes, Ben,” she says, a fond exasperation creeping into her voice. Still, it’s easy to hear the love, too, in her words. “I’ll hold your hand the whole time. I promise.”

This time, she lets him turn around and he takes advantage of this moment to bend down and kiss her, long and deeply, trying to pour into this kiss all the love and the devotion he feels for her. Rey wraps her arms around him and it’s like finding a home after wandering for so long. 

“Good,” he murmurs, then, against her lips. He feels almost drunk on this. Her love, her tenderness, her unfaltering support. “Then we can go, if you want.”

The thought doesn’t even scare him anymore because he’s not alone anymore. He’s got Rey, now. 

✨

At twenty nine, Ben Solo thinks he’s an idiot. 

The crisp, cold air of the night lodges inside his chest like a shard of glass and he’s breathless for a brief moment, the panic freezing on his lips as his chest rises and falls as quickly as the waves of the ocean during a storm. Snow has coated even the back porch, white dust spread everywhere, and he stares at it as he tries to quiet down the erratic heart he feels beating in his chest like a scared little animal.

He’s still trying to catch his breath, his hands trembling in the pockets of his coat, when the back door of his parents’ house falls open and the sound of footsteps, slightly muffled by the snow, fills the small frozen garden. 

Hastily, he wipes away the lingering tears, even though he knows it’s a pointless struggle, since everyone invited to this party has probably seen the pathetic scene he’s just gifted them, free of charge, like a thoughtful Christmas present wrapped in a nice envelope of family drama. 

Still, it matters to him. 

“Jesus, it’s cold out here,” a silvery voice says, breaking the silence. 

Someone, probably his mother, has wrapped a string of fairy lights all over the garden – above the porch, around the railing, even on the branches of the trees – and when he turns into the direction of the newcomer, she’s bathed in a warm, soft glow that give her some sort of ethereal look. 

He opens his mouth. He closes it. 

He opens it again, but he can’t find anything to say, so he settles for gaping at her – the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. 

Bright eyes, chestnut hair, a smattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose and on her forehead and the most entrancing dimples in the world on her cheeks. She looks like some sort of magical creature, bright as a comet in the sky, and instead she stands there, on the back porch of his childhood house, her red dress clearly not warm enough for this weather.

“Hey,” she says, meeting his gaze. Her smile turns a bit tentative as she steps closer and he wonders what sorry scene he must offer right now, with his red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands. “Are you alright? I’m Rey.”

“You’re–” He gulps, because he feels transfixed by her presence here, on this nightmare of a Christmas. Then, some kind of awareness comes back to his mind, because he finds himself saying, “You’re my mother’s new assistant, right? I’m Ben.” The painful memory of the shouting match that went down just a few minutes ago in the middle of his mother’s Christmas party settles like a weight on his chest and he groans, bringing a hand to his face. “But you probably already know that.”

To his surprise, Rey doesn’t step away. She doesn’t look at him with pity in her eyes or a grimace on her beautiful face. She doesn’t even tell him to go apologize to his mother, which is – _new_. 

Instead, she looks at him with her surprising bright eyes and flashes him another tentative smile, granting him a glimpse of those dimples he thinks he’s already a little fascinated by. His heart flutters again in his chest, but for a whole other reason.

“Yes, I’ve seen your pictures around. I didn’t expect you to be so tall, though,” she tells him, a glimmer of _something_ in the back of her eyes. She’s wearing heels, and yet she has to tilt her head back to look at him, and it does something to his heart, the way she’s staring at him now. Then, her gaze gets softer, her words hesitant again when she murmurs, “Listen, I know it’s not my business, but– are you alright?” 

He blinks at her, not sure of where this is going. He can’t remember the last time someone asked him if he was alright and for a moment he doesn’t know how to reply.

“Alright?” he repeats, like an idiot.

A pink tint comes to dust her cheeks, covering the smattering of freckles he’s so entranced by, and she clears her throat, twisting her hands in what looks like a nervous gesture.

“Yeah.” She darts a glance into his direction, then bites down on her bottom lip. “I was– worried. You look like you could use some company after–” She waves her hand around, then shakes her head. “But I can leave if you want, I didn’t want to overstep–”

“ _No_ ,” he interrupts her, almost immediately. His cheeks turn red, too, and he averts his eyes, suddenly fascinated by his shoes as if he’d just discovered he has them. He keeps his gaze down when he adds, “No, I mean– Thank you. Please, stay. It’s very nice of you, to worry about me. I’m sorry about–” 

He falters, but gestures vaguely, as if he could encompass the whole fight that went down a few minutes earlier like this.

The weight of Rey’s gaze, he finds out, is not that unpleasant. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” she tells him, quietly, which is _devastating_ , because he’s felt like he’s had to apologize for his existence ever since he knew how to talk. 

He doesn’t know what to say to that. 

“Oh.” 

He gulps, his heart hammering away in his chest. 

“Do you–” She takes a deep breath. In the corner of his eyes, he can see her, in her red dress, looking at him with those stunning eyes of hers. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I– I don’t know what to say. Long story short, we’re fucked up,” he tries to joke, but it obviously doesn’t work, because Rey doesn’t laugh. Instead, her gaze settles on him like a gentle weight and he sighs. It feels as if divesting himself of an armor. “It’s just– It’s always been like this, you know. We don’t know how else to be, I suppose. We try our best, but it always ends up blowing up in our faces." 

Rey lets out a non-committal sound. “Yeah, but you’re trying,” she reminds him, her voice soft. “Shouldn’t it count for something?”

“I don’t know. At this point, I’m not sure.” He runs a hand through his hair and then brings it to his face, letting out another deep breath. “I don’t know why I even thought it was a good idea, coming back home for the first time in years. Maybe I thought that quitting the First Order could change things, that we could be– together again, I guess. But it doesn’t change anything. It always feels like a game I keep losing.”

“Then stop keeping score,” Rey tells him. When he turns into her direction to look at her, surprised, she flashes him another smile and oh, she’s so _luminous_ , as if a galaxy had condensed in her lithe frame. “Look, you obviously love each other. Your mother talks about you _all the time_ , I swear. I’ve heard her talk about the time you won the spelling bee at least five different times only this month.” He lets out a stunned laugh. “Your father doesn’t talk much but I’ve seen him look at your pictures, when he thinks no one’s around. And you love them, otherwise you wouldn’t be there.”

Her gaze is limpid, her eyes as bright as the Christmas lights as they settle on him and for the first time in his life, Ben feels _seen_ in a delicate way, as if she’d removed all the layers he’d put on over the years with a tender touch and a disarming smile, and now she’s glimpsing the beating heart underneath and it’s– 

–pleasant. 

Not so scary anymore, when she’s the one _seeing_ him. There’s something gentle about her, as if she brushed against his aching soul with the softest of touches. 

“I do love them,” he admits. He wonders if this is the first time he says it out loud, and why it’s Rey, of all people, the one who can see right through him. “And I know they love me. It’s just– so messy sometimes.”

The curve of her lips tugs at some heartstrings of his he wasn’t aware until now, as he stands on the snowy porch of his parents’ house in the middle of a Christmas party he didn’t even want to attend to. He almost feels compelled to smile, too.

“I’m not the greatest expert when it comes to family,” she starts, softly. “But don’t get lost in all of these petty things. You love them. They love you. That’s what matters. You should just _talk_.”

It surprises him, the simplicity of this solution, and yet she’s – _right_. Somehow, she managed to glimpse past the fights and shouts and resentment and she saw the truth that has been escaping his grasp for the last twenty years.

“Oh,” he breathes out. He feels something in his throat, which he’s pretty sure it’s his heart. “Oh. I hadn’t– I– Wow. You’re right.”

Her smile widens, the dimples back on her cheeks. 

“I try to be,” she replies, which elicits a soft chuckle out of him. She bites down her bottom lip again, before adding, “There it is.”

He furrows his brows. “What?”

“Your smile.” Her eyes glimmer and she looks at him as if he were something breathtaking – a sunset, a waterfall, a forest. “You have a really nice smile and it would be a shame not to show it.”

His heart is a fluttering thing inside his chest. “Are you–” he starts, confused. He can feel the heat starting to creep again on his face. “Are you _flirting_ with me?”

There’s a moment of silence, but then– 

“It depends,” she replies. Her smile is bright and dimpled and wonderful and her eyes are glimmering in the soft glow of the Christmas lights and he thinks he wants to live in this moment _forever_ “Is it working?”

He laughs again, throwing his head back – and it surprises him, to realize he hasn’t laughed like this in years, and somehow she managed to change his whole life in the span of a few minutes. His chest trembles, his heart burning through his ribcage, and for a moment he feels as if the universe had tilted, as if the balance of this galaxy has suddenly shifted and now she’s the bright, incandescent light at the heart of it. 

“Yes,” he murmurs, then, taking a step into her direction. “Yes, it’s definitely working.”

Rey’s answer is a smile. “Good.”

✨

The light of the dawn bathes their bedroom in shades of pink and orange when he finally settles between her legs and presses a soft, worshipful kiss to the inside of her thigh. 

“ _Ben_ ,” she sighs, so prettily. It’s clear that she’s still sleepy – she arches her back off the bed, canting her hips so slightly, almost languidly, as if she felt inside her chest the same calm that seems to fill this room. The sunlight dances on her naked skin, turning her into a soft masterpiece – gentle curves and breathtaking angles, a sight he never stops being awed by. “Stop _teasing_ me.”

He laughs, quietly, then plants another kiss to her heated skin for good measure.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, his lips inches away from where she needs him. She sighs again, almost a desperate sound, and he looks up at her, this goddess he’s on his knees for, and feels his lips curve in a tender smile. “I just love kissing you.”

Rey hums. In this light, he can see the way her eyelashes brush against her cheeks when her eyes flutter closed.

“I love it, too. When you kiss me. You’re so good at that,” she tells him and _oh_ , the words are like honey, sweet and thick in his chest, turning him mindless with pleasure and pride. Her hands sink into his hair, tugging lightly at the strands. “But I need you. _Please_.”

He cannot deny her – his wife, this radiant creature that sighs and moans and tugs at his hair the moment he starts to lick a long stripe along her folds. He’s slow about it, as if the pinkish light of the dawn had started to flood his chest too, as if everything were suspended in this perfect moment of serenity – her moans filling the room, her hands gently urging him on, words of praise spilling from her lips like poetry.

Everything he’s ever wanted, bathed in a golden light.

“Oh, yes, just like that,” she sighs, her voice breathy and uneven. One of her hands comes to brush his hair out of his forehead, so tenderly he feels almost on the verge of tears, and she looks down at him with those devastating eyes of hers, now dark and eager. “You’re doing so _well_. So good. My good boy. My beautiful, perfect _husband_.”

He can’t help it. He whimpers against her center, his cock throbbing in his boxer-briefs at the mention of that simple word. His lips close around her clit, sucking lightly on it, and she moans again, little wrecked sounds coming out of her mouth. And yet, it all feels so _gentle_ – languid, sensual, as if they had all the time in the world. 

As if the universe had dimmed down to this moment only – the dawn bathing them in a pink haze, their bed, the pastel blue duvet they’d chosen months ago, her legs on his shoulders, her hands in his hair, the small sounds he manages to tear out of her at every lick, every bump of his nose against her clit, every pressing of fingers against the tender flesh of her thighs.

He knows her by now – her body is a temple he’s lost himself into so many times before, and he knows how to tease her, how to build her up, slowly and thoroughly, licking her, teasing her clit, turning her body into a waterfall of sensations. He circles her entrance with one of his fingers and she cries out for him, tilting her hips just slightly.

“ _Ben_ ,” she breathes out. “You’re so– _oh–_ you’re so good. So, so _good_. I love this.” Her lips curve in a smile, even as her legs tremble and her body tenses. “I love you.”

Her hands rest at the base of his neck and he can feel the weight of her wedding ring against his skin, which only spurs him on. She doesn’t stop touching him for the whole time – she threads her fingers through his hair as he slowly explores her, she tugs at the strands as she arches her back off the bed when he slips a finger inside, she sinks her nails into his shoulders when he sucks again at her clit and then she clutches at him as she finally shatters around his fingers, moans tumbling out of her mouth, her legs quivering around his head.

It’s a marvel, the sight of Rey, undone. Her hair is plastered to her forehead and a flush is spreading from her face to the edge of her collarbones, and she’s so _beautiful_ like this. He eases her through the aftershocks, prolonging her orgasm for as long as he can, and then, when the tremors have stopped, he climbs up her body again and comes to lie on the bed next to her.

He nuzzles his nose against her shoulder, waiting for her to catch her breath.

“Hi,” she says, then, smiling widely in her post-orgasmic haze.

He plants a kiss to the constellation of freckles on her shoulder. “Hi,” he murmurs, his lips curving in a smile that matches her own. Then, he leans in to kiss her and his heart flutters in his chest when she sighs and melts into the kiss, pliant and content as she is. He grins against her mouth and murmurs, “Merry Christmas.”

The laughter that slips past her lips makes his chest go tight, warmth exploding in his heart like a golden, luminous burst. 

“You are ridiculous,” she tells him, but there’s so much love in the back of her eyes it’s hard not to be at least a little bit awed by it. She knots her fingers into his hair and tugs him down again in another kiss, her lips inches from his when she whispers, “Merry Christmas to you, baby. Will you fuck me silly now?”

It’s a slow, languid thing. She helps him get rid of his boxer-briefs and he lets them fall on the floor with a rustling sound, letting the light of the dawn graze his pale skin and bathe him in the same pink glory as her. She smiles when her back hits the mattress again and he comes to cover her body with his, their limbs fitting perfectly against each other. 

“I love you,” she murmurs, her lips brushing against his. “I love you so much.”

She’s still telling him how much she loves him when he finally slips inside, slowly, as if to savor every delicious second of this brief eternity. She’s wet and relaxed from her orgasm and yet she’s so, so warm and tight around him and _oh_ , she feels so _good_ when he finally hilts himself – he has to bury a groan against the crook of her neck, his hands trembling, there where they rest around her hips. 

“Fuck,” he breathes out, almost reverently. “You always feel amazing, I– _Rey_ –”

Her hand comes to run up and down his spine, as if to soothe him. Her touch is scorching and tender at the same time, her fingertips impossibly delicate against his skin. When he comes to brush a kiss against her pulse point, he can feel the rapid beat of her heart against his lips.

“So do you, baby, _fuck_ ,” she whimpers. She wraps her legs around his waist and rolls her hips, slightly, as if to prompt him to move. “My wonderful _husband_ , making me feel so _good_.”

He’s not aware of the sounds that tumble out of his lips – he’s pretty sure he’s whimpering, groaning, sobbing, but it doesn’t matter, because she’s here, she’s all around him, and she’s telling him he’s good, he’s making her feel good, he’s her _husband_ and he’s making her feel _good_.

It’s slow, almost worshipful. He keeps an unhurried pace, never pulling out of her completely. Instead, he rolls his hips almost lazily, reveling in the drag of his cock against her walls and repeatedly hitting that sweet spot inside her that he knows will leave her breathless, and she sighs, moan, fists the sheets underneath her and tilts her hips to meet his thrusts. A thin layer of perspiration covers her skin and he presses kisses down her neck, his teeth scraping against her collarbones when he comes to suck a soft bruise.

“You fill me up so good,” she cries out, her lips trembling. “I love it. I love you. Fuck, just like that, baby–”

The wedding ring on her finger catches the light of the sun when she comes to caress his face and he can’t help the groan that escapes his lips at the sight of it. One of his hands comes to cover hers, there where it rests against his cheek, and he brings it down to his lips, kissing her palm, her knuckles, her fingers. He plants a kiss to her ring, too, and Rey lets out a chuckle that turns into a moan when he thrusts in again.

“What?” he asks, his lips pressed against her fingers.

She laughs again. It fills his chest with so much love and happiness he feels almost glowing from it, as if this pink light had nestled inside his ribcage, too.

“You have a kink,” she tells him, her lips curved into a soft smile. The heels of her feet dig a bit into his backside, making him sink even deeper into her. “You like– _ah_ – you like being my husband?”

He can’t help it – he trusts a little harder at that, making her moan and clench around his cock. He groans, almost overwhelmed by the sensation.

“I do,” he says, gritting his teeth. He rolls his hips again, pressing her down into the mattress. “So much, sweetheart, so much– you have no idea–”

“I like it too,” she pants. “I like that you’re my husband. I’ve waited my whole life for you– yes, Ben, just like that– _oh_ –”

He lets go of her hand only to bring his own between their bodies, thumbing her clit, tracing achingly slow circles around it. He can feel that familiar tingle at the base of his spine and he knows he’s close, his heart beating a frantic tattoo against his chest, but he wants Rey to feel good – he wants to make her feel good, wants to fill her life with pleasure and joy and happiness and everything she wants and he’s not aware he’s saying it out loud, but somehow he must be, because–

“You already do, baby,” she whimpers, her eyes screwed shut, her lips parted, her legs quivering, there where they rest around his waist. “You make me so happy, Ben–” She comes to clutch at his shoulders again, almost desperately. “Baby. You’re going to make me come– you’re going to make your _wife_ come–”

He thrusts a bit harder at that – he’s sloppy, desperate, fervent. His thumb on her clit traces furious little circles and she clenches around him so _perfectly_. 

“Come, sweetheart,” he implores her. “Let your husband make you feel good. Please.”

She _comes_ , her fingers digging into his shoulders, her lips parted in a soundless moan, and she’s so beautiful like this and she’s clamping so perfectly around him, he can’t help himself – one, two, three thrusts and he’s coming too, his head buried in the crook of her neck, his whimpers muffled by her heated skin.

It feels like it goes on forever – she keeps on twitching, clenching, the aftershock raking through her like an earthquake, and it takes him a moment to come back to himself long enough to remember not to crush her underneath his weight.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, almost lightheaded from the pleasure. “Sorry, sweetheart, let me–” 

He pulls out of her, eliciting a whine from both of them, and sinks on the bed next to her. Their bodies know their way towards each other and he’s not surprised when he finds himself wrapped in her embrace, their limbs tangled, her lips pressed against his hairline.

“ ’m so tired,” he murmurs, against her shoulder, before pressing a lazy kiss there. 

Rey giggles, the silvery sound filling the room. “You can’t fall asleep,” she tells him. She nuzzles her nose against the crown of his head, plants another kiss there, which does nothing to wake him up. Instead, he feels sated, content, perfectly at home in her arms. “Ben. I’m serious. We need to shower.”

A whine rises in his throat. “Don’t want to.” 

He makes his point by pulling her closer, his arm slung at her waist. He doesn’t even feel ashamed by this – he doesn’t need to hide how clingy he is, how much he loves feeling her skin against his, her body underneath his hands. Instead, he _basks_ in this. 

Rey giggles again, quietly. “We promised Rose and Jannah we’d meet them for brunch, remember?” she reminds him. She’s right, of course, but does it really matter, when her body is so soft and warm against his? “And–” she adds, her hand running up and down his spine. “We have your mother’s Christmas party tonight and you promised me to help me bake something to bring her.”

“That was a mistake,” he groans, burrowing into her. “I’m regretting it.” 

Her lips are just as warm as the rest of her, when they press another kiss to his hairline. 

“Come on,” she murmurs. Then, her voice gets lower, almost sultry when she adds, “We can shower together, if you hurry.”

He pretends to think about it for a minute. 

“Mh,” he breathes out. “That sounds reasonable.”

The laughter she lets out is bright and wonderful and it feels as if every atom in his body were made for this purpose only – as if he’d gone through all that pain and sorrow and heartbreak just for the chance to be there, on a luminous Christmas morning in their apartment, Rey’s body wrapped all over his, her lips pressed against his forehead and her love so palpable in the small space between them.

Long story short, he’s been through a bad time. 

Long story short, he’s finally _home_.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> as usual, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/akosmia) and [tumblr](http://kylorensx.tumblr.com)!! i probably won't post anything else on here before the year ends (maybe something on twitter? who knows) and i plan to take at least a few weeks off and take a break because i've exausted myself this month asdfghjk but, as taylor swift said, i come back stronger than a 90s trend!! see you all next year and i hope it will be a better one ily ♥


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